Before I attempt to answer your questions, let me re-iterate that my only affiliation with Gary and the MasterPath is as a student. Therefore I may give answers that Gary or the path might not have given themselves, or might actually not approve of. Still, I'll do my best. You could probably ask the woman you mention about the path; she will probably give similar answers.
The first thing that puzzled me about Masterpath was the secrecy: my friend made me promise never to read any of the books or other materials that she had all over her house, except for one beginning book meant for the uninitiated. Vichar, I have never encountered such a thing in any other tradition, including Sant Mat. All the teachings of all genuine teachers I have met have been freely available to all seekers, initiated or not. Can you explain why Masterpath is different?
I don't have any experience with Sant Mat, so I didn't know that they allow others to read material only meant for the initiated. My answer is only a guess which I already stated earlier in this thread. I believe that some of the works will hit students the wrong way if they encounter them too early. Gary is very explicit in some of the works about our attachments to things like ways of thinking, material objects, relationships with others. I think that early students have a tendency to view this as a direction to give things up, like cars or houses or significant others. Actually, the direction is to relax our
attachment to them, but this is very poorly understood by beginning students (for example, what is attachment, anyway? What is attention? What is attitude?) I could give other examples but I believe this is the reason why it's a bad idea to share discourses with people that are just starting out or have no affiliation with the path.
Second, followers of Sant Mat must be vegetarians. How does Gary explain that there is no karma in killing animals for food, when that seems contrary to reason, and goes against all other spiritual traditions that I have encountered, including the one he claims to follow?
There is karma for just about everything we do. I understand that killing animals for food generates karma. However, being a vegetarian will not in and of itself make a person any more spiritual. In time, the desire to eat meat falls off naturally. I believe Gary understands how the Western mind is indoctrinated -- by attempting to ask people to stop doing something, they will either gravitate towards another habit or just cling all the more tightly to something, like eating meat. You can't stop doing something by thinking more about (stopping) it. That's like trying to stop hiccups by thinking about hiccups. The key is to put attention elsewhere (like the inner guru), and the desire for meat or other addictions will eventually fade.
Third, Sant Mat requires abstention from all drugs and alcohol. Yet I read in these forums (I have no way to verify this) that Gary partakes liberally of marijuana, or has in the past. How is this compatible with the spiritual journey?
I have never observed Gary taking marijuana. I don't know if he still does, since I have no way to verify what he does at all other times when he's not giving a talk. My answer to drugs and alcohol is the same as my answer to eating meat: the student doesn't try to stop partaking. The student focuses on concentrating attention on the third eye and the inner master and these urges themselves will eventually fade. Gary, in some talks however, does make it very clear that "hard" drugs (like cocaine, etc.) are unacceptable and the student must work to get off of these before he will be allowed further ingress into the inner planes.
Fourth, satsang, with every other spiritual master I have met, is always free. I have always been taught, and I believe I have read this also in the Sant Mat literature, that teachings that cost money are not genuine, and that one way to judge a spiritual teacher is whether he charges money for his teachings. I have encountered gurus who charged money for weekend intensives, but who made themselves available at no charge for weekly satsangs. They also mingled freely with disciples and other seekers at the intensives they did charge for. My impression is that Gary Olsen does not give his disciples anything that he doesn't charge for, that he keeps well separate from them even at his seminars, and that between seminars he is not available to them in person at all. He also gives a new "initiation" to every disciple every three years, for which he also charges money. To me it is outrageous to charge money for an initiation, and unheard of for there to be more than one initiation between guru and disciple in a lifetime. It seems to me, from the outside, that everything that Gary does is designed not to teach, but to make money, and to prevent too much scrutiny by outsiders, or even disciples. Am I way off base?
Regarding charging for seminars, someone has to pay the venue. They don't occur weekly, by the way. There used to be a talk every month but even that had a physical location where Joy would give a talk (so a place had to be rented). Gary rents out an entire ballroom at a hotel, and it's not cheap. Most of the work is done by volunteers but the hotel is not going to suddenly give us the room for free. It's $40 for a talk, but I know renting out a room like that from a hotel costs thousands of dollars.
Also, there is no additional fee for initiation. You have to pay for the talk where the initiation is given (again, rooms have to be rented), but aside from that there isn't an "initiation fee". If you were told that it's simply not true.
Regarding "making money", I've stated and provided a link for how you can confirm that masterpath is non-profit. Their salaries are open for all to see. I know that mp is still a non-profit as well because dues and such are still tax-deductible (count as donations to a non-profit org). Honestly, I sometimes can't help but think that detractors are bad at math, or don't think about what they are claiming from a logical perspective. At times critics have accused Gary of "making lots of money" but then tried to argue with me in another post that there weren't that many chelas. Obviously, both cannot be true at the same time. So I think the accusations are simply an emotional reaction, and not a reasoned one. I have already said that I have a friend that sometimes volunteers at the mp office, and she observes first hand how frugal they are there. There simply isn't a lot of money to be made from collecting $30 a month from each student. The offices have to be rented, toner purchased, salaries paid, materials like envelopes and electronic media have to be purchased, etc. I wonder that people think these items should be free. Where would the money for these come from?
Finally, Vichar, I gather you were with Gary at the time of the bird flu episode. I only know about it from reading about it on these forums. But how did he explain that afterwards, to your satisfaction?
I thought Gary at the time made if VERY clear that the bird flu was just another kind of karma that
might come down, but wasn't certain. Actually, I am something of a scientist and conducted my own research. Not only is what Gary says entirely within the realm of possibility, it has happened several times in the past already. The Spanish Flu was one such example (look it up). The avian flu is still not far from evolving into something that might be more virulent in humans. The flu generations are so much shorter, they reproduce so much faster, that their ability to adapt is so much greater (than mammals, for example). So the possibility is always out there.
Gary did not give a subsequent talk about the bird flu except to mildly chastise chelas for going overboard with their preparations. I thought he was very clear that the flu was possible, not definite. If specific students did anything drastic like sell homes or move, well, that was their decision. I wouldn't recommend that myself. The information about the flu is readily available, and experts have the same opinion Gary has. Gary, in my opinion, simply brought that opinion to people's attention. The information was already available on sites like the world health organization. But you know, this is a good example of why it's not a good idea to share talks or works with everyone, or beginning students who won't understand. If someone says something that's true, and people decide to panic as a result, well, that's not good. Gary probably thought highly enough of his students that they wouldn't panic or do anything rash, but some of them did anyway. Until we attain realization, our viewpoint is necessarily clouded and we don't always make sound decisions. I think that, more than anything else, is why Gary doesn't want his talks, books, and discourses in open circulation. It just encourages people to misinterpret him more because they are not tuned into spiritual vibrations. They are still consumed with earthly (material) concerns and desires.
I did my best to answer your questions, and I hope in the places where I guessed I wasn't too off base. I would encourage you to ask your woman friend the same questions and compare our answers; she may surprise you with a different viewpoint on things.